Filed under: Motorsports, Classics, Maserati, Racing
This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend, folks, and you know what that means: racing. There was the
Monaco Grand Prix for
Formula One fans, and back Stateside there was the
Indianapolis 500. You might expect to see a name like
Maserati pop up at the former more than the latter, but that wasn't always the case.
These days its all about
Dallara chassis powered by
Chevy or
Honda, but over the course of a century there have been plenty of foreign automakers that have won the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
McLaren won it twice in the 1970s,
Mercedes and
Peugoet won during the race's pre-WWI infancy, and in between them Boyle Racing won it two years in a row with a Maserati chassis and engine.
The car was the Maserati 8CTF "Boyle Special," and its first win came 75 years ago. So to mark the occasion (as well as Maserati's 100th anniversary), the car was brought back to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a revival lap. Unfortunately Wilbur Shaw, who won the Indy 500 three times (twice in the Maserati) and went on to be president of the speedway, died in a plane crash the day before his 52nd birthday in 1954. So in his place fellow three-time winner Johnny Rutherford took the wheel of the 8CTF in front of the gathered crowds.
The celebration also marked the 8CTF's entry as the first import automobile to be registered with the Library of Congress, meeting the criteria set down by the Secretary of the Interior to be immortalized as an historically significant automobile.
Continue reading Maserati returns to Indianapolis to commemorate historic win
Maserati returns to Indianapolis to commemorate historic win originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 27 May 2014 10:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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